


a dream in broken images

by Starships



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 5.4 spoilers inside, Alternate Universe: Soul Bonds, Amaurot with liberties taken, Brat Hades, Canon-adjacent, Coffee shop if you squint, F/M, Sub Hades, Telepathy, Trope Challenge, WoL somewhat inspired by Baba Yaga
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:28:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28819272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starships/pseuds/Starships
Summary: The Ancients spring from the Lifestream as half a soul but with the voice of their mate always inside their mind. Emet-Selch is no exception.And yet... for reasons he cannot fathom, his soul mate refuses to meet him.He doesn't even know her name.
Relationships: Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25
Collections: Bookclub Top Trope Challenge (January 2021)





	a dream in broken images

I wish I could tell you the first time I heard her voice, but I can only offer you the first thing she said that I can clearly remember:

_Well, this isn’t going to work._

We aren’t born like you are, so much as we… _become_ , I suppose. We _are_ the Aether, from before the time we exist to beyond the time we are stars once more.

It is how we know the piece of soul our own has been Sundered from, how their music carries us as far down the river as we need to go. We feel their emotions as we feel our own, for we are one heart. We speak across great distances, for we are one mind.

Mine is just… well.

She’s a sarcastic arse, is what she is.

I always did feel luckier than most.

…

Every time I stir sugar into my tea _(Too much, little Hades. I knew you’d have a sweet tooth on you)_ or close my door that is too heavy and still squeaks _(I can hear that from here, you know)_ to leave for the Aetherologicum, I get this feeling in my chest. A clench, or a drop—it’s like I’m staring at her getting on a transport and I know I’m never going to see her again.

The thing is, though—I’ve never met her.

Maybe she’s tall.

Or much older? I know that means less to us, but—

I’ve never met her, and I don’t know why. My heart drops into my stomach and I watch that transport close, latch, lock: day after day after day. She is always walking away from me.

 _Patience,_ she has said, many times. 

_Patience, and we’ll be together_.

For the first time, here as a young man resting shoulder to shoulder with Daeus in the Capitol Courtyard, my heart on fire thinking of my future in Amaurot, I whisper something back.

**Liar.**

  
  


…

We talk more, after that.

...

  
  


They say the foamy water that makes up the tide is the barrier between this world and the next, and that cats can sense evil. They say a circle of salt is a phalanx against spirits. 

Well. Daeus says these things, anyway.

I have two cats, Senna and Charm. My home rests on rocky, cold shores and my feet sink into the surf until the hairs on my toes are frothy with loam. I make circles of salt around my doorways and windows, only to carefully bisect them before retiring to sleep.

I only know for certain that she is _not here_.

If she is truly of another world, as I have somehow impossibly come to believe, perhaps Senna will have better luck.

…

I still don’t know her name. True name or title, I’m not picky. The silence brought by her absence is too gaping, too painful. Every bonded I’ve ever met has known their mate’s name. How can her voice rattle my bones like this, like I see in other lovers, when I _don’t even have the power of her name_?

I feel like I’m coming apart.

…

I felt her today. _I felt her_. Real emotions, unguarded. 

I was eating a sandwich, and I almost choked to death on ham.

_Ham._

It would be a pristine example of my luck to meet her over my dead body, judging my choice of stone ground mustard with a condescending arch of an eyebrow I have decided she definitely does, and often. 

I felt two things. The gentle silk of my name, and a flash of arousal so hot and sharp I kicked Daeus under the gaudy café table. 

In case you find yourself curious, erections are impossible to conceal when you have upended your coffee over them, and I shall never hear the end of it.

…

We wear masks for many reasons, but I believe the most important one is this: they provide a barrier to intimacy amongst a people that cannot escape the sight of aether. 

I have dreamed now six times of seeing her skin bared, a myriad of possible colors and textures and, if I’m truly honest, tastes. The mere concept of seeing her face is so erotic that I cannot comprehend a circumstance where I would ever admit to my more perverse desires, to lick salt from her skin, to look into her eyes as she comes. 

What color are they?

She is too bitter, too sharp and acidic for the green of spring. Blue, maybe—a bright cerulean, but for some reason I can’t imagine blue eyes crinkling at the corners while she laughs. 

And I _know_ her eyes crinkle. I can hear it in her voice. 

Are they golden, like mine? 

Or does she keep them closed, scrunched up while she begs for me?

 _(You think I’d_ beg? _)_

**Quiet. Despite appearances I wasn’t actually asking you. Unless you’re volunteering to show me?**

_Oh, little Hades._ _You are not ready to see._

I fling wide the doors of my mind, inundating her with my slideshow of unknown faces. I’m starving. Ravenous. Hard, with an otherwise embarrassing wet patch on the front of my trousers I make sure she can feel under my fingers. I touch myself and let her feel absolutely everything. 

Her side of our bond is quiet, but as I bite my lip and bring myself off, I feel her constant simmer rise beyond a boil. 

I come not caring what color her eyes are at all.

…

  
  



End file.
